Landmark Medical Negligence Cases and Awards in Trinidad and Tobago
Under the law of Trinidad and Tobago, medical negligence claims are decided case by case under the Bolam test as refined by Bolitho, and contested judgments now span from TT$140,000 in general damages at the lower end to a TT$18 million High Court award affirmed by the Privy Council in Gulf View Medical Centre Ltd v Tesheira in 2022 — the largest contested medical negligence award in T&T history. The State has separately paid more than TT$16 million across 61 settlements (2015–2024). This Part II reviews the named obstetric, misdiagnosis, surgical, and medication-related decisions from the Judiciary of Trinidad and Tobago, with citations, facts, rulings, and quantum.
This article is the companion to our overview of medical negligence in T&T. The earlier article explains the substantive law, the limitation period under Section 3 of the Limitation of Certain Actions Act, Chapter 7:09, and how to start a claim. Here, we look at how the courts have actually decided the cases.
How Do Trinidad and Tobago Courts Apply the Bolam and Bolitho Tests?
The standard of care in T&T medical negligence cases follows the Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee [1957] 1 WLR 583 formulation: a doctor is not negligent if they acted in accordance with a practice accepted as proper by a responsible body of practitioners skilled in that field. The Bolitho refinement (from Bolitho v City and Hackney Health Authority [1997] 3 WLR 1151) requires that the practice relied on must be capable of withstanding logical analysis — courts will not accept a "responsible body" defence if the practice is itself indefensible.
In practice, T&T High Court judges have consistently applied both limbs:
- The defendant calls expert evidence of accepted local practice.
- The claimant calls expert evidence that the practice fell below standard.
- The judge weighs both and asks whether the conduct relied on "withstands logical analysis."
T&T courts have not been timid in rejecting Bolam defences where the underlying practice is illogical — for example, where a high-risk obstetric patient is admitted but never assessed by an obstetrician, or where a clearly evolving infection is sent home without investigation.
What Is the Largest Medical Negligence Award in Trinidad and Tobago?
The largest contested medical negligence award in Trinidad and Tobago history is Karen Nunez-Tesheira v Gulf View Medical Centre Ltd and Dr Crisen Jendra Roopchand. The High Court awarded the claimant TT$18,034,772.33 in damages on behalf of her late husband's estate and dependants. The judgment was upheld by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in October 2022 (Gulf View Medical Centre Ltd v Tesheira [2022] UKPC 38), making it the apex-court-affirmed high-water mark for medical negligence quantum in T&T.
The deceased, Russell Tesheira, was admitted to Gulf View Medical Centre — a private hospital in La Romaine — in April 2004 for a trans-urethral resection of the prostate (TURP). He suffered heavy post-operative bleeding and died the same day. The Privy Council found that the consultant anaesthetist, Dr Roopchand, had breached the Bolam standard of care, and that the hospital was vicariously liable. The case is significant for three reasons:
- It demonstrates that the Privy Council will engage with quantum on T&T medical negligence appeals, not only liability.
- It applies Bolam/Bolitho to a private-sector defendant — confirming that the analytical framework is identical for private and public providers.
- It sets the practical ceiling for what a T&T claimant can recover where the deceased had substantial earnings, dependants, and a long pre-death life expectancy.
What Are the Landmark Obstetric and Birth-Injury Cases in T&T?
Obstetric negligence has produced several of the most consequential T&T medical cases — both because the injuries (stillbirth, birth asphyxia, maternal death) are catastrophic and because the failures often involve systemic understaffing rather than a single rogue clinician.
Samdaye Harrilal v South West Regional Health Authority
The claimant in Samdaye Harrilal v SWRHA (Court of Appeal CV App. #60 of 2008; HCA No. 555 of 2003) was admitted to San Fernando General Hospital in April 2002 for the delivery of her child. She had a known congenital heart condition and was therefore a high-risk obstetric patient. Senior medical staff at the hospital were engaged in industrial action; no obstetrician saw her during her admission. She delivered a stillborn child on 23 April 2002.
The High Court found liability and the Court of Appeal of Trinidad and Tobago upheld it, awarding TT$140,000 in general damages plus TT$140,000 in exemplary damages. The Court of Appeal endorsed the systemic-fault analysis articulated by Mendonça JA: an industrial dispute does not relieve a Regional Health Authority of its duty to provide adequate specialist cover to admitted patients. The decision remains the leading T&T authority for the proposition that institutional or operational failings cannot be used to exonerate the RHA, and the exemplary damages component signals judicial disapproval where the systemic breach is egregious.
The Port of Spain General Hospital NICU cluster (NWRHA)
In April 2024, the initial filings against the North West Regional Health Authority cited seven neonatal deaths between 4 and 9 April 2024 in the neonatal intensive care unit at Port of Spain General Hospital. The consolidated class action subsequently identified 18 deaths in the cluster. Microbiological investigation identified three pathogens: Serratia marcescens, ESBL Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Klebsiella aerogenes. The matters remain pending as of the date of this article. The cluster is significant for the volume of related claims arising from a single facility incident — and the foreseeable magnitude of any consolidated quantum, particularly read against the Nunez-Tesheira ceiling.
What Are the Landmark Misdiagnosis Cases in T&T?
Misdiagnosis is the single most common pleaded ground in T&T medical negligence claims. The pattern is recurring: a patient attends an Accident & Emergency department or district health facility, is examined briefly, sent home, and returns days later with a serious or fatal condition that was diagnosable on the first visit.
Navin Singh v South West Regional Health Authority
A welder attended the Princes Town District Health Facility in 2014 with localised pain and signs of infection. He was misdiagnosed on two separate visits. He was in fact suffering from necrotising fasciitis — a rapidly progressive soft-tissue infection often described as "flesh-eating bacteria" — which is treatable with prompt surgical debridement and antibiotics if recognised. The infection was not identified in time. He died.
In Navin Singh v SWRHA, High Court Judge Avason Quinlan-Williams found the SWRHA and its staff negligent and ordered compensation of TT$1,664,334.51 to the deceased's estate, on a claim brought by his mother Bhagwantee Singh-Weekes. Navin Singh is the largest contested public-sector award against an RHA in modern T&T jurisprudence — though it is now exceeded by the private-sector Nunez-Tesheira judgment. It illustrates the practical operation of Bolitho: the defence's reliance on standard "watch and wait" triage logic could not withstand analysis where two examinations had failed to detect a recognisable surgical emergency.
Anthony Jordan v North Central Regional Health Authority
In Anthony Jordan v NCRHA, the claimant was misdiagnosed at an NCRHA facility, and the High Court awarded TT$375,000 in general damages plus TT$75,000 in additional heads. The case is a useful mid-tier benchmark for misdiagnosis claims that do not result in death but produce significant ongoing morbidity, and it confirms that the NCRHA's exposure on misdiagnosis is consistent with the SWRHA pattern.
Why misdiagnosis cases succeed
Misdiagnosis claims tend to succeed in T&T where three features are present together: a recognised diagnostic protocol exists for the presenting symptoms, the records show the protocol was not followed, and timely diagnosis would have changed the outcome. Where any of those is absent, the claim is harder to advance.
What Are the Surgical-Error and Retained-Object Cases in T&T?
Surgical errors — operating on the wrong site, retained surgical items (swabs, instruments), and avoidable injury during a procedure — produce clear breach findings because the res ipsa loquitur doctrine often relieves the claimant of having to prove how exactly the breach occurred. The fact that a swab is left inside a patient is itself evidence of negligence absent a credible explanation.
Several settled and reported claims against the NWRHA, NCRHA, and SWRHA have arisen from retained surgical materials and procedure-related injuries. The pattern is consistent: the State's own audit data (published in 2024) showed that surgical-error and procedural-injury claims account for a significant share of the 61 paid settlements totalling over TT$16 million between 2015 and 2024. Individual settlement quantum has not been publicly itemised in most cases, but a confirmed range can be inferred from the aggregate: the NCRHA alone paid approximately TT$10 million across 18 claims, suggesting an average payout in the region of TT$555,000 per claim.
Practical note from practice
In our experience handling surgical-error claims in T&T, the decisive evidence is rarely a contested expert dispute — it is the operative note, the swab count record, and the post-operative imaging. Where these documents support a retained-object inference, RHAs typically settle pre-trial.
What Are the Medication-Error and Prescription Cases in T&T?
Medication errors include the wrong drug being prescribed or administered, the wrong dose, failure to check allergies or contraindications, and administration error (intravenous instead of intramuscular, for example). T&T does not yet have a single landmark High Court judgment exclusively on medication error of the visibility of Navin Singh. However, medication-related failures appear repeatedly within the State settlement data and within wider negligence pleadings.
The legal framework is the same: Bolam/Bolitho applied to the prescribing or administering practitioner, with vicarious liability of the RHA where the error occurred in a public facility. In private settings, both the prescribing physician and any pharmacy involved may be joined as defendants. Where a death results, the dependants' claim under the Compensation for Injuries Act, Chapter 8:05 runs alongside the estate's claim.
What the Law Says in Trinidad and Tobago: Summary of Landmark Cases
The table below summarises the named and confirmed T&T medical negligence matters by issue, outcome, and quantum. Statute references are hyperlinked even where mentioned earlier.
| Case Name / Authority | Year | Issue | Outcome | Quantum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Karen Nunez-Tesheira v Gulf View Medical Centre (Privy Council) | 2004 (incident); HC 2022; UKPC Oct 2022 | Anaesthetic / post-operative bleeding; death after TURP at private hospital | Liability upheld; Privy Council affirmed | TT$18,034,772.33 |
| Navin Singh v SWRHA | 2014 (incident); HC judgment 2018 | Misdiagnosis — necrotising fasciitis on two visits; death | Largest contested public-sector RHA award | TT$1,664,334.51 |
| Anthony Jordan v NCRHA | HC | Misdiagnosis at NCRHA facility | Liability; HC judgment | TT$375,000 + TT$75,000 |
| Samdaye Harrilal v SWRHA (CV App. #60 of 2008; HCA No. 555 of 2003) | 2002 (incident); CoA decision later | Obstetric — no obstetrician during industrial action; stillbirth; high-risk patient | Liability upheld on appeal (Mendonça JA) | TT$140,000 general + TT$140,000 exemplary |
| NWRHA — Port of Spain General NICU cluster | 2024 (filed) | 18 neonatal deaths; Serratia marcescens, ESBL Klebsiella pneumoniae, Klebsiella aerogenes | Pending (consolidated class action) | Pending |
| NCRHA aggregate (per CNC3 2024 disclosure) | 2015–2024 | Various — surgical, misdiagnosis, obstetric | Settlements | ~TT$10 million / 18 claims |
| State of T&T aggregate (per CNC3 2024 disclosure) | 2015–2024 | Various across all RHAs | Settlements | TT$16 million+ / 61 claims |
| State Liability and Proceedings Act, Chapter 8:02 | Statute | Governs claims and proceedings against the State / RHAs | In force | N/A — procedural |
Claims must be brought within four years of the act of negligence or the date of knowledge under Section 3 of the Limitation of Certain Actions Act, Chapter 7:09. In fatal cases, a separate dependants' claim arises under the Compensation for Injuries Act, Chapter 8:05. All judgments referenced above are searchable through the WebOPAC judgments database.
What Do These Cases Reveal About How T&T Courts Approach Medical Negligence?
Three patterns emerge from the decided and settled cases. They are useful both for prospective claimants assessing the merits of a case and for defendants assessing exposure.
First, T&T courts engage substantively with Bolitho. They do not simply accept that a "responsible body" of practitioners would have done what the defendant did. Where the practice asserted is illogical on the facts — as in Samdaye Harrilal, where a high-risk admitted patient was simply not seen — the court rejects the Bolam defence outright.
Second, systemic failings are not a defence. Industrial action, understaffing, and resource constraints have not been accepted as exoneration. The duty owed to the patient survives the operational difficulties of the institution. This is now settled in T&T jurisprudence.
Third, quantum tracks the severity of outcome and the impact on dependants, not the egregiousness of the breach. Samdaye Harrilal was a clear-cut breach but produced a lower award than Navin Singh — because the heads of damage in the latter (loss of life, dependency claim, and pain and suffering before death) were more substantial. Nunez-Tesheira sits at the apex precisely because the deceased had substantial earnings, dependants, and a long pre-death life expectancy. Practitioners should focus on documenting all heads of loss exhaustively, not on emphasising how bad the breach was.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are there any reported Trinidad and Tobago cases where a public hospital was found liable for medical negligence?
Yes. Samdaye Harrilal v South West Regional Health Authority and Navin Singh v South West Regional Health Authority are two of the most frequently cited. In both, the SWRHA was found liable — once for failing to provide obstetric cover during industrial action (TT$140,000 general plus TT$140,000 exemplary damages), and once for two consecutive misdiagnoses of necrotising fasciitis at a district health facility (TT$1,664,334.51). Anthony Jordan v NCRHA is a further reported example.
What is the largest medical negligence award in Trinidad and Tobago?
The largest contested medical negligence award in T&T history is Karen Nunez-Tesheira v Gulf View Medical Centre Ltd and Dr Crisen Jendra Roopchand — a TT$18,034,772.33 High Court award affirmed by the Privy Council in October 2022 ([2022] UKPC 38). The largest contested public-sector award against an RHA remains Navin Singh v SWRHA at TT$1,664,334.51. Aggregate State settlement data shows the NCRHA alone paid approximately TT$10 million across 18 claims (2015–2024).
Has the Privy Council ever decided a Trinidad and Tobago medical negligence case?
Yes. In Gulf View Medical Centre Ltd v Tesheira [2022] UKPC 38, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council affirmed the TT$18 million High Court award against the private hospital and consultant anaesthetist, applying the Bolam standard and engaging substantively with quantum. T&T courts continue to apply the English Bolam/Bolitho framework directly, now with apex-court endorsement on the T&T fact pattern.
How long does a medical negligence case take to reach judgment in T&T?
A contested medical negligence claim typically takes between three and seven years from the issue of proceedings to High Court judgment. Navin Singh (2014 incident; judgment around 2019) is illustrative. Delay arises from disclosure of records, securing local and overseas expert reports, and the High Court's listing schedule.
Is res ipsa loquitur ever used in Trinidad and Tobago medical negligence cases?
Yes. The doctrine — "the thing speaks for itself" — applies in T&T where the injury is of a kind that does not normally occur without negligence and the instrumentality was within the defendant's exclusive control. Retained surgical objects, wrong-site surgery, and certain anaesthetic catastrophes typically attract its application, shifting the evidential burden to the defendant.
Can the family of a patient who died from medical negligence sue in T&T?
Yes. Two claims may be brought. The estate of the deceased can claim for the pain, suffering, and loss of amenity suffered before death. Dependants can bring a separate claim under the Compensation for Injuries Act, Chapter 8:05 for loss of financial support. Navin Singh is an example of this dual-track recovery.
Where can I read T&T medical negligence judgments online?
Judgments are searchable through the WebOPAC judgments database of the Judiciary of Trinidad and Tobago. Searching by party name (for example, "Singh" or "Harrilal") or by Regional Health Authority will return the relevant decisions where they have been digitised.
What should I do if I think I have a medical negligence claim in T&T?
Do four things, in order. First, obtain your full medical records from the hospital or RHA. Second, write down every relevant date — when the treatment occurred and when you became aware something had gone wrong. Third, instruct an attorney experienced in medical negligence. Fourth, do all of this well within the four-year limitation period under Section 3 of the Limitation of Certain Actions Act, Chapter 7:09.
Written by Martin George, Attorney-at-Law. Martin George is the founder and principal attorney of Martin George & Company, with more than 35 years of active legal practice in the courts of Trinidad and Tobago. He is a former Commissioner on the Law Reform Commission of Trinidad and Tobago and a member of the Prime Minister's Constitutional Committee for Internal Self-Government for Tobago. This article is published for general information and public legal education. It does not constitute legal advice. For advice on your specific situation, contact Martin George & Company.
Last reviewed: April 2026